Onboard your company to Slack

Whether you're introducing Slack to 500 people or 500,000, onboarding large groups is no easy task. This guide will help you introduce Slack to your company in a meaningful way.

The highlights

Build a team to define how your company should use Slack

Explore how Slack can make your company more productive

Design Slack to fit your company's needs and goals

Create a plan to launch Slack company-wide

1. Build a launch team

Assembling the right mix of people is the first step to a successful launch. Here is an example of possible roles and responsibilities:

Internal roles

Project ManagerThe main point of contact, responsible for coordinating launch activities.

Executive SponsorThe "Slack Champion" amongst the leadership team who will actively communicate the purpose and value of Slack.

Business OwnersThe people who will reinforce the importance of Slack among their individual teams. They'll identify key use cases and modify them over time.

Workspace Owners and AdminsThe people who will manage your workspace's settings and preferences and help with ongoing member management.

Change TeamThe people who will educate employees on how to use Slack. They might build a training plan, share best practices and use cases, and provide support.

Slack roles*

Account Executive (AE):Your main point of contact with a deep understanding of your business needs.

Customer Success Manager (CSM):Your AE will connect you with a CSM to help coordinate a smooth launch.

Support Team:Our Support team is always here to help if you've run into an issue or need help using Slack.

*Our Support team supports the majority of our customers' needs, so not all customers will have dedicated AE or CSM.

Hello! Our Support team is available 24/7 and always happy to help. Get in touch with us if you ever need a hand! 👍

2. Explore challenges and goals

It's time to get your launch team on the same page. It's essential to have a well-defined vision and purpose for using Slack. Employee interviews are a great way to understand your company's current communication culture.

Here are some questions you could ask:

How does our company's culture impact how we communicate?

How do you communicate and collaborate with teammates?

What apps and tools do you use for work?

Which people/teams do you work closely with? Who else do you work with?

How do you think Slack could help our company?

Your findings will help highlight your company's communication challenges and opportunities so you can set goals for the organization and projects to focus on.

3. Identify use cases

Keep track of specific use cases and workflows that will help you achieve your goals. Choose scenarios that will maximize the benefit to your team.

Start with two to four specific use cases.

Choose use cases that address existing communication challenges.

Model positive behaviors that members can copy.

Review your progress each week after launching Slack company-wide.

Sample business use cases

Use case #1

Use case #2

Business use case: Making company announcements

Current challenge

It’s hard to learn about important updates from multiple teams

Email distribution lists are used for too many types of communication and inboxes fill up quickly

Objective

Increase transparency across multiple teams

Let people opt-in to announcements that are most relevant to them

Slack features that can help

Star important channels

Customize notifications (e.g. use highlight words)

Quote a message

Link to relevant channels, messages, and files

Slack workspace behaviors

Establish must-read announcement channels

Keep important channels clear of unnecessary chatter

Keep channels focused and on-topic

Success criteria

75% or more report Slack has helped them feel more connected

50% or more report increased transparency

20% or more report they’ve noticed a decrease in internal emails

Business use case: Asking for feedback

Current challenge

Asking for feedback from a group via email is not an efficient process

Objective

Collect feedback efficiently from direct and indirect teams

Increase transparency on key projects

Slack features that can help

Shared channels

Shared files

Custom notifications or @mentions

Message threads

Emoji reactions

Slack workspace behaviors

Ask for feedback openly in a public channel

Be concrete about timelines and set reminders in appropriate channels

Demonstrate courtesy for other teammates by using emoji reactions

Use posts to collect ideas and pin in a channel for easy reference

Success criteria

Members reported 20% or more in increased productivity

Members reported having 20% fewer meetings

Members reported having a better understanding of projects and progress in adjacent departments

4. Set up your workspace

Set up and manage your workspace's settings and preferences before launching Slack company-wide. A full menu of settings can be found on the Settings & Permissions page at my.slack.com/admin/settings.

To help you get started, here are some settings that can set the stage for how your workspace operates. We've included some additional tips for guidance:

Channels

Messages

Access

Apps

Choose who can create, archive, and manage membership for public and private channels on your workspace from the Channel Management section.💡We recommend giving people the autonomy to create and archive channels, making Slack work for them in a more meaningful way.

💡We recommend letting all members create and manage public channels. It helps to express the value of communicating openly in public channels to promote transparency and contribute to your company's message archive.From the Message and File Retention sections, you can set custom retention policies that align with your organization’s legal/compliance standards. For public and private channels, direct messages, and files, you’ll have some options around your retention preferences:

• Keep everything• Keep all messages, but don't track revisions (e.g. edits and deletions)• Delete messages and their revisions after a certain period of time💡The collection of knowledge built over time in your organization’s message archives is a major benefit of Slack. The more message history you can retain, the better!If your organization uses an identity provider, you can set up single sign-on to give your members access to Slack. From Settings & Permissions, just click the Authentication tab.💡Visit the Guide to single sign-on with Slack.

You can decide who has permission to manage apps and internal integrations from the Manage section of the App Directory.

💡Customizing your Slack workspace with apps that your members use to get work done drives productivity. Be sure to give the right people access to install apps and custom integrations.

5. Create a channel naming guide

Having a guide for naming channels makes it easier for people to discover and join the channels that are relevant to them. Thinking ahead about a strategy will help your workspace be more successful.

Start with broad channel topics, then drill down

Create a guide for naming channels

Share the guide with your workspace

Encourage everyone to stay on-topic

Note: We've created an entire guide dedicated to helping you organize and name channels. We believe this is essential to building a solid foundation for your workspace — don't miss it!

6. Educate your team

Offer training sessions

Make sure your launch team has a solid understanding of how Slack works. Here are some ideas for how you can host Slack training sessions:

Executives and LeadershipCommunicate the value of Slack, and the importance of ensuring their organization is aligned on using this tool.

Create a #help-slack channel so people have a place to ask questions. Pinning helpful information to the channel makes it easy for members to reference it quickly. Depending on your audience and the level of support you think they’ll need, consider offering in-person training sessions.

Get trained! We offer a free, interactive training app you can add to your workspace. Open to all members, use the tutorials to learn how to use Slack effectively at work. Add the Slack Foundry app.🏅

7. Onboard the team

The best way for people to understand the value of Slack is to try it out — start small, then gradually add more people.

Phase 1: Choose a small group

Phase 2: Include a specific team or department

Phase 3: Expand to multiple teams or departments

Here is a suggestion using a phased approach:

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Start small with an internal team that already communicates and collaborates regularly. We recommend between 10 and 50 people, including the launch team, and growing from there.

💡Create a channel called #intros. Whenever new members join your workspace, ask them to share a little bit of information about themselves.

💡 Try using information gathered during the user interviews to choose a group that is ready and comfortable with change.

Now that you’ve demonstrated Slack’s value, it’s time to choose a specific team to formally launch with. The group could range in size between 100 and 500 people depending on your organization’s comfort with new technology and open communication.

When selecting the next group, try to choose a cross-functional group that collaborates often and is ready for change. Including the group from Phase 1 is key — they'll show newcomers how to work with each other in Slack.

You can repeat this phase as much as necessary until you feel comfortable moving on.

💡Ensure Slack Admins add new users to the appropriate User Groups, ensuring each person joins the right channels.

Now that a healthy foundation is established, you can begin to add more groups and departments. To help adoption, choose teams that already overlap regularly with people that participated in Phase 1 and 2.

That's it! Repeat this phase as much as necessary until your whole organization is on Slack.

💡Assign members tasks (with due dates) that can be completed in Slack.

💡Hosting a special Slack Training Day coordinated around the launch is a nice way to promote Slack internally once you are ready for the broader group to join. We’ve prepared a few things to help get this off the ground!

8. Track progress and iterate

Tracking your progress will help you demonstrate the value of Slack to the rest of the company, inspire new ways of working together, and identify opportunities to grow. Here are some examples:

Track the adoption of Slack by reviewing your workspace's statistics periodically (e.g. every six months). Look for an increase in the:• Number of sent messages.• Number of uploaded files.• Number of installed apps and internal integrations.

Interview employees to see how Slack has improved your team’s productivity. Ask members about:• The amount of time it takes to search for information.• The amount of time it takes to switch between apps they use for work.